The Paris Agreement collectively committed the countries to limit Global Warming to well below 2°C and pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. However, how much Global Warming by 2100 is each country’s climate pledge leading to, if all countries adopted the same national approach and ambition? This question is being tried answered for the world’s countries on the new website ‘paris-equity-check.org‘ (Pledged Warming Map). The underlying ‘Peer-reviewed study‘ is published November 2018 in Nature Communications.

The site says: “The Paris Agreement includes bottom-up pledges and a top-down warming threshold. Under this setting where countries effectively choose their own fairness principle, Paris-Equity-Check.org presents scientifically peer-reviewed assessments the ambition of countries’ climate pledges (the Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs) and address the question: What is a fair and ambitious contribution to achieving the Paris Agreement?” Read ‘Ambition of pledges‘ and ‘The science‘.

The IPCC Report ‘Global Warming of 1.5°C‘ released October 2018, finds that limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require reductions of global human-caused CO2 Emissions (carbon dioxide) of 45% by 2030 compared to 2010, and reach zero emissions around 2050¹.

However, since global Fossil CO2 Emissions increased 6.4% between 2010 and 2016, and the world population is expected to grow 1.2% annually the years to come, the required 45% global CO2 reductions by 2030, is equivalent to 53% reduction per capita by 2030 compared to 2016, or in only 14 years. In other words, an average world citizen must cut Fossil CO2 Emissions from 4.8 tons in 2016 to around 2.3 tons by 2030 and zero by 2050 (if limiting global warming to 1.5°C). Note that forest cover growth, removing CO2 from the air, etc. can substitute Fossil CO2 reductions in the IPCC scenarios².

World Wildlife Heritage is miraculous. However, human caused Climate Change is a brutal attack on the biodiverse wildlife on Earth. In a recent analysis ‘Published in the journal Science‘ data were gathered on geographic ranges and current climate conditions of 31,000 insect species, 8,000 birds, 1,700 mammals, 1,800 reptiles, 1,000 amphibians and 71,000 plants. Then, it was calculated how the ranges change when global warming means some regions can no longer support particular species. The analysis only took global warming as such into consideration, not the impact of lost interactions between species or the impacts of more extreme weather events; nor the interaction with wildlife degradation for other reasons.

The moral bottom line of the ‘Copenhagen Accord‘ promise is this: Rich countries must increase Climate Change Finance with new and additional money to developing countries from zero in 2009 to $100 billion by 2020. If this had happened gradually, then about $73 billion would have been delivered in 2017.

‘Oxfam‘ claims that the taxpayer-funded finance from rich countries to developing countries in 2015-16 was about $48 billion, or nearly half the amount promised for 2020. However, according to ‘Brookings‘ an earlier OECD-CPI report claims that as much as $62 billion was delivered back in 2014 – while India on the other hand claims that “only $2.2 billion could rigorously be defended as meeting the promise in Copenhagen” (COP15, 2009). Apparently, many flows counted by the OECD-CPI should not have been counted, flows such as “market-based loans counted at the full amounts, and export credits.” In other words, the confusion and dishonesty seem to be considerable.

The website ‘https://goodlife.leeds.ac.uk/countries/’ let you visualize and compare the environmental and social performance of 151 countries. A total of 18 indicators – 7 environmental and 11 social – are included in the comparison. However, 81 of the included countries are missing data of between 1 and 9 indicators. The methods and results underpinning the data used on the website is the peer-reviewed article ‘A good life for all within planetary boundaries’ (abstract). It says that: “Physical needs such as nutrition, sanitation, access to electricity and the elimination of extreme poverty could likely be met for all people without transgressing planetary boundaries. However, the universal achievement of more qualitative goals (for example, high life satisfaction) would require a level of resource use that is 2–6 times the sustainable level, based on current relationships.”

Among 164 countries with full data in ClimatePositions 91 have Climate Debts. Note that Saint Lucia is new on the full data country-list with an accumulated per capita Climate Debt of $287. India, Lithuania and Latvia are likely to have small Climate Debts soon … by 2018 or 2019.

In addition to the full data country-list, 16 countries with lack of indicator data would have Climate Debts with roughly estimated data¹. The estimated per capita Climate Debts of these countries are:

The four global Indicators: Land-Ocean Temperature, Sea Level, CO2 in the Atmosphere and Population have been updated in ‘ClimatePositions (Excel)‘. Combined, the updates resulted in significant increases in national Climate Debts. Land-Ocean Temperature and Sea level due to adjusting the national GDP-Factor, while CO2 in the Atmosphere and Population due to adjusting the global Fossil CO2 Emission Target.

Diagrams with the four global Indicators are shown below [diagram were replaced 15-02-2018].

The diagram below shows ‘Share of global Climate Debt‘ in 2010, 2015 and 2017 of Papua New Guinea, Guatemala and Tonga (ranked 88th, 89th and 90th). All three countries had zero Climate Debt in 2010, Tonga even in 2015.

The diagram below shows ‘Share of global Climate Debt‘ in 2010, 2015 and 2017 of Honduras, Guyana and Bolivia (ranked 85th, 86th, and 87th). The share of Honduras decreased significantly during the period. The global Climate Debt accumulated since 2000 is $7.2 Trillion.

The diagram below shows ‘Share of global Climate Debt‘ in 2010, 2015 and 2017 of Tunisia, Bahamas and Jordan (ranked 76th, 77th and 78th). The share of Tunisia is continuously declining, whereas the shares of Bahamas and Jordan are uneven.

The diagram below shows ‘Share of global Climate Debt‘ in 2010, 2015 and 2017 of Vietnam, Mongolia and Gabon (ranked 73rd, 74th and 75th). The shares of Vietnam and Mongolia are both growing continuously. Vietnam and Gabon had zero Climate Debt in 2010.

The diagram below shows ‘Share of global Climate Debt‘ in 2010, 2015 and 2017 of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania and Lebanon (ranked 64th, 65th and 66th). The shares of Romania and Lebanon are ups and downs, while the share of Bosnia and Herzegovina is steadier.

The diagram below shows ‘Share of global Climate Debt‘ in 2010, 2015 and 2017 of Estonia, Croatia and Ukraine (ranked 61st, 62nd and 63rd). The shares of Estonia and Ukraine are increasing, whereas the share of Croatia is decreasing.

The diagram below shows ‘Share of global Climate Debt‘ in 2010, 2015 and 2017 of Slovenia, Belarus and Bulgaria (ranked 58th, 59th and 60th). The share of Slovenia is decreasing, whereas the shares of Belarus and Bulgaria are increasing rather fast (Belarus had no Climate Debt in 2010).